Thank goodness that last week ….
Thank goodness that last week is over. Lots of good stuff and some not so good. In the end, I will say the good stuff outweighed the bad. I even got to see an Angel.
Remember last week I started my column after the snow got deep enough to cover my TV dish. Well, the next morning the television was working again, so I thought I was home free. Not so. It worked fine Friday, the day after the snow, but by Saturday I was down to just two channels.
Then Sunday I was home alone. Thank goodness I still have my faithful computer to keep track of things.
The Angel appeared about midmorning on Friday. I’d just come home from getting the mail and was stewing about getting my walk to the front door shoveled. Just like that, I heard a noise and looked out, an Angel. He looked a lot like my great grandson Jackson Dietsche, but he went right to work on the walk and front porch. Then to be really nice, he shoveled a path to the bird feeder. I’m sure they were happy as they spent Thursday during the snowstorm pretty well emptying it.
When I was telling the girls what happened one of them said, “Well, of course, don’t you remember how Stephanie liked to give Mom little angels? So she sent Jackson.”
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Another good thing was I got my first virus shot. I guess I’ve been watching too much television. It didn’t turn out anything like I’ve seen so far.
I’d gotten picked to appear at the hospital in Neillsville at ten in the morning. Figuring I’d better be on time, I was there by 9:30. To my surprise the parking lot was already full and of course so were all the handicap parking spaces. Thankfully I decided to take my trusty walker instead of just relying on my cane.
Once inside I was ushered to a desk where a lady took my insurance cards and made out my shot card. Then I was ushered to the basement where a room full of people sat. A lady took my card and handed me a pen and a sheet of paper with lots of questions on it.
I got them answered and she was back to usher me over to the nurse who was going to give me my shot. Once I’d gotten my shot she handed me a small timer and told me to have a seat on one of the chairs. Now I understood why the room was full of people just sitting around. When I looked around I understood about the handicapped parking. Most seemed to be my age or older, walking with canes, walkers or in a wheelchair.
When the timer went off I found my way to the elevator and out the door. I don’t have to be back until March, so hopefully it won’t be so bitter cold by then.
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Speaking of cold, we seem to have been blessed with a long spell of cold. Yet, as I look at the weather news, we are the lucky ones again. Just for the fun of it I looked up Port Aransas, Texas, and Sunday and Monday morning they are predicted to have temperatures in the 20’s. That will mean all bridges, which become too slippery, will be closed.
You might say the cold snap was partially responsible for the huge accident on I-35 at Fort Worth, Texas, last week. That was a highway we always took going down and back every year. I said partially because the other factor is no one slows down. The speed limit is 75, if not higher and it is just a big accident waiting to happen.
I recall one year coming home we encountered ice, but further up in Oklahoma, I believe. If you did try to slow down, traffic just kind of tried to run you over. I think we finally ran out of it, or got off the highway for the night.
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A thing called Facebook takes up a lot of time on my computer. I haven’t figured it out, but it appears to be a place where anyone can write anything they want, ads and yes, silly stories as I have shared some with you. Mark tends to share old pictures of the kids or in many cases a bit of history. The other day he mentioned that it was July 29, 1948, when President Harry Truman issued an order to integrate the Armed Services.
It was at that time the draft was reinstated and I, like a lot of other young men, got signed up. Then in June, 1950, the Korean War broke out and by the next March I was one of those who had to answer the call to serve. It was after my basic training that I discovered what it meant to be integrated. Our company, the 652nd Truck Company, was made up of over half blacks. We got along fine, but I thought after we got out of the service in March, 1953, those black servicemen had to return to their homes where all kinds of discrimination was going on. Not until President Johnson put a stop to that in 1965, did it end and I’m not so sure it has by the things that have taken place in our nation this past year.
Going back to my school days, I remember reading how President Lincoln freed the slaves. Yet, I don’t recall anything said about helping them get a farm or job. Just that they were free.
Lincoln was also credited with creating the Homestead Act.
Europeans who came over were granted a quarter section of land for free.
All they had to do was make improvements in five years and it was theirs.
